The Envoy (2 page)

Reetor followed the route that had been drilled into him. It sure was a helluva way to make it to Hydra — zigzagging and backtracking like a kid high on Enlighten. But he got the need for discretion. This was no ordinary mission, and he knew better than anyone that he was at more risk than most. Before him, it had been a long time since an Avenger had deserted. The failure of the Enforcers to catch him so far was made so much worse by the fact that he was a raw Avenger recruit; insult to injury. The bounty on his head was a rich one; he had seen the V-tomes. Reetor had only survived by hooking up with the Backlash, and proving his worth. He could fight, but he also knew a lot about the Avengers, so he was an asset. For now. The Backlash would protect him; X would protect him.

At least for as long as they could.

And this was something he could do for them. He knew their target: Kyntura Casters, a Captain of the Avengers of New Earth, and his old Magister. She had tried to stop him that day, but he knew he had no choice but to run. They called her The Dancer, and while she was harder than perspete, her judgement was second to none. If she was part of the rebellion, as the intelligence had suggested, The Backlash would gain a formidable ally.

If not, she would snap his neck the moment he opened his mouth.

Either way, he had no choice.

He was going to Hydra, back to the seat of his darkest nightmares. He knew from the intelligence that Kyntura and her Avengers were due to conduct another vientium run there, like the one they'd done the day his class was blooded. He needed to connect with her there somehow, without being killed by her or any of her team.

Then he needed to convince her to help them.

Piece of cake.

But first he needed to get to Hydra, in this clapped-out bucket of crap they called a pod. If he didn't know better, he'd suspect X's husband had sabotaged the mission by giving him the worst pod available.

But he did know better.

The Backlash had nothing. Only rage, and knowledge. And a few ragged ships.

So he did his best to shepherd the battered old thing out into the blackness, making a beeline for Tyver's newest moon, blood red and enormous, hanging in space like a portent of doom. Who would ever have thought Backlash HQ was on Tyver, the deadliest of all the planets in Sector XX, populated by Tyerian warlords and the ice vampires they had enslaved? A planet of ice, and of pissed-off aliens. No wonder The Council had so far had no luck discovering The Bunker. It had been a stroke of genius by X. Even if living in a tomb deep under the ice shelf sucked worse than living on a group of loosely connected space stations, circling the universe, looking for a new home.

Reetor banked left as he approached Vermillion, the red moon, and reminded himself to add that to the list of things not to think about: how badly the precious few inhabitants of New Earth needed to find a new home. Don't think about The Seek. Whatever they all needed, they wouldn't get it by stealing from others. Humans knew better than anyone that genocide sucked. You learn that pretty quickly watching a race of space megalomaniacs blow up your home planet.

He shoved the thoughts away and carefully calculated the next leg of the merry route he was to take to Hydra. As he guided the little pod past a shower of velvety purple spray-stars, a light flashed on the V-tome on his console.

‘Incoming message,' a metallic voice whined.

Reetor punched the display and a vidfile sprang into life. He studied it, frowning, trying to work out its origin and content. The visuals were dark and busy, and it took a moment for the picture to form properly in his brain.

Then he had it. A hard ball of fear bounced around his insides as the picture lightened and he saw the dark muscular back of someone kneeling on a white floor, facing away from the camera.

He blinked twice.

Surely not.

But yep. It was his back. And it was kneeling between the legs of a naked blonde, his face pressed at the place her thighs met.

X looked to be enjoying herself. A lot. At another time, he might have thrilled at the confirmation that she had been just as lost in their thing as he had been. Her head was thrown back, her naked breasts full and standing to pleasured attention on her golden chest. Her slim legs circled his back, linking at the ankles as though forming a vice to push him harder to her pleasure. Reetor wished very badly that he could remember the time, but there had been so many in the three months they had shared. His cock responded of its own accord as X moaned loudly on the vidfile, and issued some instruction to which he had been quick to respond.

Fuck, man. Get a grip. This is not some sexy home-movie.

On the vidfile, Reetor got to his feet and peeled off the tight black jodphurs he had brought with him from Avenger HQ. He almost blushed as he watched himself naked and aroused on the small screen. X had said he was beautiful; he had never been told that before.

What he did see on the screen was his size. At six-feet seven, he towered above X, who was slim but strong. In some distant past his people had come from Africa, and although the line had been diluted along the way, his skin was still a colour resting on the palette between caramel and milk chocolate. His training with the Avenger Corps had honed his musculature to a razor point, and he had maintained that discipline during his time on the run and once he reached The Bunker. He knew that at any time he might find himself alone again in a hostile universe. His biceps clenched big and round when he strode over and picked up the naked blonde, and as he carried her to a nearby desk the vidfile caught his face. She called him patrician, but even now, Reetor didn't really know what that meant. Caught like this, he looked very focused, his square jaw set with determination, his eyes hooded with desire.

Reetor watched as X lay back on the desk and beckoned to him. He caught one word from that pouty pink mouth:
hurry
. The Reetor on the vidfile didn't need to be told twice. He positioned himself in front of her, the camera catching a sneaky view of his cock as he did. A memory of X flashed into his brain as he watched: the first time she had seen him naked; her shameless approval as she had eyed his equipment and told him she loved a man who was in perfect proportion.

After that, it was hard to see as his buttocks moved against her, but her spiralling moans told an eloquent tale. Clearly whoever had sent the video also felt it had done its job, because the picture blacked and a short message took its place on the screen:

Don't come back. I will show it to him if you do.

Fuck.

Reetor narrowly missed colliding with a slurry of asteroid shards as the screen went blank. He punched buttons furiously, trying to ascertain the origin of the file, but it had been cleverly disguised. Clearly someone from The Bunker, but who? There were so few of them. Maybe a couple of hundred lived there permanently; a thousand in total on different missions from time to time. A thousand refugees from a race of homeless refugees.

Could it have come from her husband? He dismissed the thought. Head games weren't Y's style. He would have incinerated Reetor on sight if he had seen that vidfile.

And it couldn't be X; she had told him to survive and return. The woman was contrary, but he doubted she would mix her messages about something this important.

Who hated him enough to want him out of the picture for good? He sighed. The list was potentially endless. He knew many of the Backlash feared that Reetor's high profile would eventually lead the Enforcers to The Bunker.

He would probably never know who had sent the file. The whole thing made him feel suddenly, terribly alone. Even more alone than he already felt out in deep space, leaving the peculiar safety of Tyver for an uncertain assignation on Hydra.

After seeing the file, he knew he couldn't return. As ludicrous as it was, The Bunker had been the first place in Reetor's twenty years he had ever been able to remember feeling a degree of safety. Where could he go next? He knew there were other outposts of The Backlash; he had found his way to Tyver via one of them. But would they take him in? He shook his head to banish the thought.

The mission first; worry about the future later. He focused on the starcharts in front of him, going over the circuitous route for the thousandth time.

Was there enough stealth in it to avoid detection by The Enforcers?

He hoped so. He could really use a break today.

***

Later, Reetor tried to work out why he hadn't felt the jolt of her arrival, the slick shudder as the beam engaged. He was sure it wasn't just the after-burn head-fuckery of that damned file; more likely the tricky path he had been picking through the asteroid belts at the lip of Sector Seven. No doubt she had planned her entry to coincide with that moment.

The first he knew, a white-hot blade sizzled near his right ear, burning his short hair where it curled just above it. Her voice was very soft and deep for a woman; so different from X's high, commanding lilt. ‘You do know not to move, right?'

‘Yes.' He knew, alright. In fact, he knew so well he was worried to even utter the word lest the slight vibration of it in his mouth caused the thing to graze his face. Avengers knew more about weaponry and the races that wielded them than anyone else on New Earth. Almost anyone, he corrected himself, thinking about The Bunker.

A hand ran gentle fingers over his scalp. ‘I like your hair,' the disembodied voice crooned as Reetor tried to stay as still as possible at the mercy of the petrification blade. He had tended his foster-mother's body. He knew what they could do.

‘Thanks,' he said carefully, again terrified to speak but knowing he needed some intelligence about what he was dealing with.

Someone had beamed onto his pod.

Someone was holding the most terrifying weapon in the universe close to his brain.

But he wasn't dead yet. And someone seemed intent on chatting about his hair.

He could think his way out of this; he had to.

He closed his eyes and thought about what another woman had said: Kyntura, his old Magister, and the soldier he was en route to meet. She had liked his brain, relished it, when others in the Avengers had doubted it would benefit him.

The best warriors are smart
, she had said.
It's another weapon; use it.

‘Sure would be nice to see
your
hair.'

‘You'll love it,' she countered, her voice playful, but with a dark edge that sent a chill skittering down his spine. ‘The Temerites think I'm magic.' She paused, testing his hair under her fingers again. ‘That's why they didn't kill me.' She paused again, swapping hands neatly as she transferred the blade to the delicate skin just above his other ear. ‘Although I often wish they had.'

Reetor's mind raced. The Temerites had killed his foster mother. They were slavers. Had they taken this one? Is that why she used their weapons?

‘They buddies of yours?'

‘Buddies?' He heard the frown he couldn't see while sitting carefully erect in his seat.

She didn't know the term? Where had she been living, under a rock?

‘Friends,' he supplied, keeping his voice as neutral as possible.

She snorted a little. ‘Ha. More like family.'

Reetor slowly calmed his breath the way his Magister had taught him, slowing down his physiology so he could operate strategically, rather than from the fear that threatened to cloud his judgement and dull his senses. ‘Holidays must be a real blast,' he said, shifting very slightly to try to catch a glimpse of her reflection in the perspete of his control panel.

‘I was raised there,' she went on, her free hand touching his hair this time, before moving down to rest on the back of his neck. Her hand was very warm, and there was something ludicrously comforting about her touch. ‘But not by them. On a slave farm.'

Goosepimples broke out on Reetor's flesh. He had heard of it, but the stories had never been confirmed. The Gargarions had taken some of the children when they had invaded the Earth, and sold them to those races that harvested intelligence for various purposes. ‘Did they let you out for good behaviour?'

She laughed, a deep, pleasing sound, waving the deadly blade near his cheek. ‘The intelligence didn't tell me you liked to make jokes,' she said, sounding far away.

I feel about as funny as an ice vampire massacre right now
, Reetor thought.

‘What did it tell you?'
Keep the bitch talking.

She made a noise as if she was considering his question. ‘Deserter. Big. Bright guy. Rich kill. Richer for a return.'

Aha.
‘You're a bounty hunter?'

She was quiet for a moment. ‘I'm whatever I need to be.'

Reetor took three long breaths, waiting for her cue. He had no options. He could not move, not with that blade at his brain. His only option was to wait and ready himself, assuming, hoping he would have a moment. If she had been going to kill him she would have done it already. Clean, efficient. He heard the hardness in her voice. He remembered what she'd said.
Richer for a return.

‘So how are we going to do this?' He tried to sound casual. It was hard, with a petrification blade at your skull.

‘It's tricky,' she mused, going back to patting his hair.

He caught the briefest glimpse of her reflection in the perspete as she shifted positions. Tall, long hair. Unusual. It had been a long, long time since he had seen a woman with long hair.

‘They want you alive, of course.' She sighed. ‘But to bind you I need to move you. And that, of course, is when you'll make your move. And I know you will, because anyone would try, of course, when the alternative is the Enforcers. Via the Temerites.' She sighed again, and sounded very young as she did. ‘I'm the first to admit my family aren't very nice.'

He tried to guess her age from her way of speaking and the quality of her voice, but it was hard. She spoke English as though she had learned it from a tome.